Bing beats Yahoo globally - except Britain

Microsoft's "decision engine" seizes number 2 spot in search

Just one week after its launch, Microsoft's Bing is already the second most popular search engine in the US and worldwide (but not in the UK), according to StatCounter Global Stats.

Yesterday, Bing accounted for 16 per cent of online searches in the US, compared to Yahoo's 10 per cent.

Worldwide, the story is similar, with Bing earning a 5.6 per cent market share, beating Yahoo's 5.1 per cent slice.

Brits blank Bing

The UK is one of the few countries yet to jump on the Bing bandwagon, with Bing's 2.9 per cent share on Thursday still trailing Yahoo's 4.2 per cent.

Naturally, in all markets Google still accounts for the vast majority of searches (71, 88 and 91 per cent respectively), but StatCounter says that most of Bing's market share has been acquired at Google's expense.

"It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is on to a winner," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, which analyses four billion of page-loads each month.

Microsoft held a big launch party for Bing here in Seattle earlier this week, and is still beaming a giant searchlight (geddit?!?) into the sky to celebrate Microsoft's rebranding and revamping exercise.